Patronus
by The Baker Street Irregular
Summary: With a single thought, Sherlock could conquer any amount of darkness.


Sherlock remembered the first time he successfully cast a Patronus at the age of four.

_"Accidental wandless magic!"_ His father's words proclaimed with barley hidden pride. His voice was edged with the quickly followed formality, _"But of course, we will pursue the necessary precautions to ensure his safety. Luckily, this occurrence was a small concentrated use of magic…"_

Sherlock overheard his father's voice from the sitting room. Earlier that evening, Mycroft had found his brother pale as a ghost. Sherlock sat crouching on his bed, hugging his knees to his chest. Dried tears framed red eyes that were intently focused on the meandering patterns of a milky-white honey bee circling in front of him. Sherlock didn't speak to his brother. When he looked up, he learned that his Mother's presence had joined them.

The wizarding world was always watching however, and the use of wandless magic of that amount of power had attracted attention. Attention that his Father entertained far too enthusiastically from the sitting room.

His mother was a bit more clever than his father, concerning the extent of observational skills. The next day in the drawing room, she sweetly pulled Sherlock on her lap to gently interrogate him.

"Sherlock dear. Yesterday, do you know what kind of spell that was?"

Sherlock wasn't entirely sure, but he wasn't completely without assumptions. He shrugged.

"Protection." Of this he was fairly positive. His mother's voice cracked and her hands begin to tremble, more unanswered questions rising in the answer's wake. Sherlock frowned. He'd upset her.

"Oh Sherlock. Love. Protection from what?"

Sherlock remained silent. He didn't want to give any more wrong answers.

His mother cried.

It is extremely late at night, but Sherlock is undaunted by the hour as he sits among the multicolored glass beakers littering his writing desk. He has caught himself pondering an irrelevant memory when his mind should be instead, preparing variables for tomorrow's experiment in professor Snape's class. Most people didn't like him, but Sherlock could appreciate the man's brilliance in potions for what it was. Sherlock imagined that had he been housed in Slytherin like his _Prefect borther, Mycroft,_ he would be much closer to the professor than he was now. As it was however, the reality of the Hogwarts houses was that relationships revolved around attire and projected behavioral traits.

Sherlock had never been one to care about appearances - After all, here he was breaking house rules with a Gryfindor sleeping in his bed post kurfew. Sherlock smiled softly thinking of the invasion of privacy.

The first time Sherlock had ever experienced pure undiluted joy throughout his being, it was in the presence of John H Watson. It is this realization that has Sherlock curiously pondering the memories of his childhood. The patronus charm is an incantation cast via the concentration of immense amounts of happiness, so it goes without saying that he is rather is perplexed at the mystery presented before him; His childhood was filled with little, if any happiness.

Patronus had become the spell that haunted his childhood – why it was cast, or under what circumstances were irrelevant means to an end. Wandless magic was the tell-tale sign of a powerful wizard, and Sherlock, like his brother Mycroft, promised great things for the Holmes family name. Well, that was, until he shamed it being housed in anything but Slytherin. Sherlock remembered that he had gotten smart with the old hat, and rather impatiently told it to "Get it all sorted then, and send him to Ravenclaw. _Obviously_." Hogwarts was his escape, and his _House_ would not become his _Home_

Overall, Sherlock loved Hogwarts. It allowed and encouraged the young mind to explore his ideas and magic in ways that few other places provided. Given, some were rather unorthodox explorations which initially required that he request certain permissions from the headmaster himself, Albus Dumbledore.

That was how Sherlock found himself, an audience before the far too busy wizard who asked him one question and one only. His gaze fell on Sherlock as if he were reminiscing an old forgotten friend. Those eyes, glowed with the secrets of the universe, and Sherlock couldn't help but feel like he had always known him, in the sense that Dumbledore was not a singular entity to begin with, but was an ethereal existence that simply, was. The omnipresent voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Now tell me then, for what, do you seek with such desperation behind those eyes?"

Sherlock tightly wound his fingers around his oak-wood wand, Intrusively reminded at that particular moment for no apparent reason, that honey bees were attracted to this tree in particular. The thought comforted him slightly, and gave Sherlock enough courage to meet Dumbledore's eyes. When it came to a wizard like Albus, There was no point in being anything but vulnerable and uncomfortably honest, but then, Sherlock never answered his question. Not Really, but he also knew that a great mind like that needn't the use of words to get the information he required. Dumbledore's eyes were of the first that met Sherlock's cold calculated stare with warmly deduced knowing, and after that audience, the wizard gave Sherlock complete permission to pursue his experimentations; much to the pains of a number of professors. His only condition was that if Sherlock ever need anything, or any of his experiments get out of hand, to ask the help of the Headmaster himself.

Sherlock held that man in a regard reserved for none other.

John jolts in his bed and gasps a short breath. Sherlock is torn from his thoughts, and turns to glance towards his friend. Normally John insists on not seeing Sherlock past hours. After all _rules are rules,_ except for when they are at John's inconvenience. When something is bothering him, John sends Sherlock an instant note, asking to be let in. Of course, It's always past hours. On these strange nights he fights off sleep until he can no longer, then he wakes a few hours later screaming from night terrors.

That's exactly what he does tonight. Sherlock has already soundproofed his room as an act of precaution.

Sherlock is at his side in seconds. He wraps his arms around John tightly as his friend embarrassingly sobs into the purple fabric of his night robes. Heaving breaths and mumbling inconsistent phrases. John is awake now. But lost to the temporary darkness following the harrowing visions. Sherlock has never dared ask the contents that would reduce a brave Gryffindor like John to tears. Although he is always ever-curious, he knows better. He finds himself instead, softly caressing John's skin, whispering milk-and-honey words into his ears with reckless abandon. John never asks Sherlock about the things he says the following mornings. That is their silent agreement of sorts, but Sherlock wishes that he could only return to John, what this amazingly brilliant person has given to him. Sherlock is more than certain this is one of the whispered thoughts that slip into Johns ear. But Sherlock rather looses himself in his quiet confessions, and never completely recalls exactly what he says either.

It is here the simple idea strikes him, and Sherlock smiles into John's cheek and begins telling his a story about bees and the first time he cast a wandless magic. All seemingly unrelated things, but now, they are all falling into place for the ravenclaw mind as he relates the story to John.

Sherlock tells John how he always loved bees. Watching their swirling, seemingly aimless dance. It gave his mind focus, clarity, and calm. A single fixed point in the changing world around his childhood. Did John know that bees were a keystone species, and their gentle existence was a force that moved the world beneath it? They were nearly innocuous beings in their dull mundane routines, but powerful beyond measure. _How absurd!_ Their strength wasn't in their individuality, John but rather, their collectivism. Their sense of belongingness to one another. In an unhesitant charge they would sacrifice their very lives for a single sting of poison, if only for a chance to save what was most important to them...and that was the most powerful magic, wasn't it? _Love..._

Sherlock confesses that for the longest time after his realization of exactly what a patronus was, he hated the thought of his being an _honest hardworking bee_. The small, completely unmajestic honey bee of all things, to fight off sodding dementors! For some time he had been even ashamed of the small ball of light that hovered next to him with the similarity and fashion of a fairy. He was teased relentlessly the first time he had to publicly procure his patronus; _That's not even an animal! _They laughed. He was infuriated in learning that the form of a Patronus was unchangeable.

But sometimes, after weeks of isolation, of being shunned by all houses including his own. He would begin to drown in the darkness of his mind. He would realize that while he didn't mind being alone, he didn't take a liking to being lonely. I_t would be nice _He thought. _To belong with someone. To not have to wander this darkness alone.…_ Those were thoughts that returned him to the desperation of his childhood. And quietly, in his room, a honeybee manifested itself, working relentlessly for Sherlock, to dissipate the building darkness of his mind.

He told john that he had solved the mystery. That perhaps, so long ago in childhood, that wandless patronus wasn't cast in fleeting a spur of the moment experience of happiness, but instead was projected hope, of everything he so dearly wished for at that time. In the ensued happiness of having it - even if it were only in his imaginations, - he had unknowingly cast his patronus to illuminate the surrounding darkness.

_"Now tell me then, for what, do you seek with such desperation behind those eyes?"_

_Protection. _The unanswered word floats from behind his Sherlock's eyes. Protection from the darkness itself. Protection from the soul shredding hunger of loneliness and isolation. A light in the form of warmth, human affection, and belonging. A light that he would be willing to sacrifice everything to protect.

_Love. _The old wizard read Shelrock's vulnerable honesty through the magnification of illuminated spectacles. He smiled, all his fears about the young man and his experiments, apparently quelled for the time being. He sent the young man on his way and coincidental as it might appear to be, Sherlock Holmes would meet his second Gryffindor later that day.

Brave and Brilliant - Absolutely brilliant. Kind, steadfast, and nearly all the things that Sherlock had always admired, but could never hope to be, normal and idiot included. But they were all the things he hoped for, and wished for secretly from within his heart.

Sherlock's heart swells as he finishes his story. He stares into John's beautiful eyes as he pulls away. A small patronus has manifested itself and for a silent stretch of time, the two lay in Sherlock's bed, watching the lazy meandering pattern of the glowing honey bee, silently tracing the dusted trails of it's path. John is much calmer, and is strangely docile under it's glowing presence. He looks to Sherlock, and suddenly, without warning, unfiltered words slip from the recesses of his mind. "What do you think about?" Obviously referring to the patronus.

_What thought makes Sherlock so happy it makes him feel as though with it alone, he could conquer any amount of darkness..._

Sherlock resolutely rests his hand on John's chest, feeling the rhythmic drum of John's heart beating to the dancing patterns of the bee. Perhaps, in the muggle realm where John was from, these kind of things existed to be explained away with a single word, but there was no coincidence in the wizarding world.

Sherlock's leans into John, stealing a quick chaste kiss.

"I think about you...**I always have."**


End file.
